Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley

Bud sat in the park,--Clothes-line Park, Amarilly had dubbed it--one

Monday afternoon, singing a song of gladness. The park was confined by a

clothes-line stretched between three tottering poles and the one

solitary poplar tree of the Jenkins estate. The line was hung with white

linen garments, and smaller articles adorned the grass plot within the

park.

This to Bud was the most beautiful spot in the world. He looked up into

the sapphire blue of the sky flecked with soft patches of white, then

down upon the waving grass latticed by sun and shade; he listened to the

soothing rustle of the poplar leaves, the soft flapping of linen in the

breeze, the birds in the tree tops, and felt his heart and throat

bursting with all the harmony and melody about him. Not always was Bud's

refrain one of joy. There were songs of sorrow on the damp days when the

washings must be dried within the house, and he could not venture forth

because he still was regarded as the delicate one of the family. There

were days, too, when the number of garments was not adequate to complete

the boundary to the park, and that meant less to eat and worry about the

rent and a harassed look in his mother's anxious eyes.

But there was no sob in Bud's song this afternoon. The clothes had been

hung out unusually early, and were nearly dry, so his mother had brought

out her little lean-back rocker and sat beside him for a few moments to

listen to his carol and to hark back to the days when his lusty-voiced

father had sung to her in the shadows of a vine clad porch.

It was not upon Amarilly, the sharer of her burdens, nor upon the baby

that Mrs. Jenkins lavished her tenderness. Bud crept closest because he

had been the one most dependent upon her care.

When the little singer ceased, the mother arose and unpinned the

garments, carrying them in armfuls to the huge basket in the middle of

the park. Bud watched her thin, fatigued hands as they performed their

accustomed task, and a sudden inspiration came to him. His future field

of labor had troubled him. Now his way seemed clear. He stepped nimbly

to the grass plot and gathered up the pieces spread thereon.

"Ma," he said, as they met at the basket, "I've jest thought what I kin

do, when I grow up, to support you."

"What is it, Bud?" she asked interestedly.

"The teacher said we must plan to do what we knew the most about. I know

more about washin' than anything else."